


And The Skies Are Not Cloudy

by Anonymous



Category: Hap and Leonard (TV series)
Genre: M/M, Recovery, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 02:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10548662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "It takes time," says Leonard.  "Anything worthwhile does."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Canon-compliant through season one. I'm going to go out on a limb and say probably not at all compliant with the books.

Technically it's the guest room, but Leonard doesn't really have any other guests except Raoul, and it's not like he sleeps in the guest bed, so over the years Hap's left spare clothes in the dresser, a toothbrush and a comb on top. He's had to crash there often enough: some days his car can't start and it's easier to sleep over than make Leonard make the drive out to his place twice, when they're both going back to the fields in the morning. Some days he'll stay late and watch the game, or watch what passes for the news over a few beers, and he doesn't drive drunk. A couple of times, he's had to have his own house fumigated, and once there was a scare with the mortgage, a will-they-won't-they-foreclose sort of deal. It's easier to have a change there in the morning, easier than Leonard grumbling about his personal funk's potential as a biological weapon, one they could have used in 'nam. Over the past few weeks he's stuck some of his records on top of the dresser too. There's only so much country a man can listen to. 

He wasn't planning on going back home tonight, and now that he's drunk all that beer he doesn't think Leonard expects him to. But this is still Leonard's house, and he still respects his rules, so he clears up the food and empties as best he can, and then he goes to take the dog out. 

"C'mon, Switch," he says, and opens the front door. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Leonard demands, and the dog hangs back.

"I was going to put him back in his run--"

"Hell no," says Leonard. One hand curls around Switch's collar. "A dog's a social creature, you don't stick him out there by himself. Damn it, Hap, you're making my dog fat and lonely. Come on, buddy," he says, "you're staying here tonight."

Switch barks and wags his tail. Hap had figured Leonard would want things done as they'd always been done, maintain the dogs' training and discipline, but there's only the one dog now, and Leonard's not letting go of him. 

"Fat and lonely," Leonard repeats. "Keep this up, I'm going to have to get him a bunch of damn comic books and some bad facial hair."

Hap smiles, and smiles again when he gets up in the middle of the night to use the john (all that beer) and sees Switch dozing outside Leonard's door. 

\- 

Leonard cooks breakfast in the morning. Hap's a little queasy, but forces it all down, and it seems to do him good. He finishes showering and getting dressed and finds Leonard outside, tossing a ball for Switch in all directions but the kennel. 

"About time," Leonard grumbles, and this time, when Switch comes back, he hands the dog a sausage link. 

"I'm making him fat?" Hap asks, hands in his back pockets. 

"He's been fetching half an hour. It's called incentive."

"Uh huh," says Hap, in a voice that teases, _It's called hypocrisy_. 

Switch just licks his lips and goes back inside when Leonard tells him to. He settles in by the door, sticks his head on his paws. "Good dog," says Leonard and ruffles his fur, although kneeling makes him wince, before they leave. 

They drive mostly in silence. The radio is scratchy, doesn't pick up too many stations, although Leonard occasionally twirls the dial hoping to find some decent country. Most of the time it's preaching of the worst sort: hell and tarnation, Michael Dukakis is going to let black men rape your wives and women abort their babies, AIDS is god's punishment for this sinning nation. They never leave it there long enough to hear a full sentence, but they know how it's going to end. 

Approaching the city, they see a billboard for Beau Otis. "Dumbass little rich boy wants to get into politics without ever having worked a day in his life."

Hap hasn't told him and is never going to tell him about the signs, the "I thought no one lived here." "May not be all his fault. He's dumber than a bag of hair, and with those tiny hands how's he supposed to do manual labor?"

"You could be on to something," says Leonard. "I sure as shit wouldn't hire him."

It takes Leonard just about the entire day to settle on a suit. He's eyeing the stock critically and snapping at the attendants who try to help him--well, help isn't really the word, but that's what they're pretending to do. Hap wishes he'd just hurry up and be done with it before the salesman gets too blatant and Leonard knocks his face in, but he supposes on some level Leonard doesn't want to buy this suit, because once he does there's nothing between him and the funeral, him and his uncle's death. Hap gets that, but he still breathes easier when Leonard makes up his goddamn mind. 

The ride back is nearly as quiet--they think they've landed on a country station for a second when a voice starts warbling about how every cowboy sings a sad, sad song, but this sad, sad song turns out to be a power ballad, and Leonard switches off the radio in disgust. 

-

Couple of days later, Hal swings by after work with a sixer of gas station beer. 

"Thanks," says Leonard, "but I'm supposed to lay off drinking until my kidney's healed."

"Who said it was for you?"

They sit on the porch--not taped to anything this time--Hap with a bottle of beer, Leonard with a can of ginger ale, and Switch with his head on Leonard's thigh, and stare out into the dusk. 

"Boss says you can have your old job back," says Hap. He's not going to repeat the exact words their boss used, because Leonard's not going to have that job for long if he punches the boss again. 

"I'm on temporary disability for another two months." Hap takes a drink to cover his dismay. The doctors had told him not to go back to work any time soon too, not that he'd had work to go back to, but he'd still spent those first few weeks fixing up Leonard's house, and then going back to the fields. He couldn't sit still too long, still can't. If he sits, he starts thinking, and that doesn't do anyone a lick of good. "He'll have to pay me under the table, but the cheap bastard will probably like that."

"Yeah," says Hap. 

It's not long before his bottle is empty, and he heads back in for another. The phone starts ringing as the door swings shut behind him. 

"Leave it," says Leonard, catching the can Hap tosses to him. Switch leans up to take the dog biscuit from him: his teeth close on it with a surprising gentleness, and he rolls away from Leonard to eat it, holding one end in his paws. Dog's got more manners than he does. 

"You sure?"

"I'm sure," says Leonard, a little too testily. 

"It might be--"

"I said I'm sure."

-

Sometimes, when they're back in the rose fields together, it almost seems like nothing's changed. Like they were never held hostage by a couple of psychopaths, never watched five men die. Never found a fortune, and lost it, and found it again. 

Leonard grumbles about the work even more half-heartedly than he used to. It's hot and it's hard and it doesn't pay too well, but it's work, and Hap figures Leonard doesn't want to dwell on what happened neither, and until his kidney gets the all clear from the doctor he can't even drink. Hap sees the difference in the little things like that: Leonard not drinking, the fresh plaster on his house when he picks him up in the morning and drops him off in the evening, the bandages and the scars on him when the Indian Summer comes and Leonard strips off his shirt in the middle of the day to let the sun dry up the sweat. 

Hap has scars of his own, but they're cleaner, and the uglier of the two is somewhere most people aren't going to be looking anyway. The doctor had told him it was no joke, getting shot in the ass, and that if Soldier's aim had been half an inch off the bullet would have severed one of Hap's arteries and he would have bled to death before he could make it back into the house. 

Hap's mind had gone to Trudy, to how awful that head wound had looked, to the sheer brutality of her hand hammered to the table--and what it must have been like to pull that hand off, and, broken and hurting, use it as a weapon. How despite all that gore, what actually got her was this tiny hole no wider than the tip of her pinkie, but still big enough for her to bleed out from because it was so close to her heart. And one of the bullets that hit Leonard had nearly killed him. People were so goddamn fragile, is what Hap sees every time Leonard takes off that shirt. 

"Gonna have to start charging you," says Leonard, maybe the fourth or fifth time he catches Hap staring. 

"You're the one giving it away for free," says Hap. "You don't see me whipping my clothes off."

"That's 'cause you'll burn redder than one of these roses." Leonard shrugs and pulls the shirt back on. "But not before your pasty ass blinds us all."

"I'll show you my pasty ass," says Hap, and then the boss yells at them to stop flirting and get back to work.

-

The call comes sooner than he's expecting. "Hot date?" asks Leonard, when Hap drops him off at the house Friday evening. 

"Something like," says Hap. He doesn't ask about Leonard, who's been twitchier than usual on the subject of Raoul since he got out of the hospital. Seems like being taken care of like that had either been unpleasant, or not unpleasant enough, and the two of them were working it out the way they always did, which was Leonard pretending he didn't care and eventually admitting he did by giving in when Raoul next showed up at his door. It was just that that last part hadn't happened yet. 

Hap wondered when it would. Leonard would swear it wasn't the case, but Hap knew better than anyone it wasn't good to be lonely after what they'd just gone through. It was only that when Leonard and Raoul were on again Hap wasn't like to spend so much time at Leonard's, and it wasn't good to be lonely after what they'd just gone through. Maybe if they did get back together, Hap could offer to babysit the dog.

He drove all night into Arkansas and slept in his car. Dumb of him, because when he woke up he hurt everywhere, but he wasn't about to shell out for a hotel and he'd done that sleeping in cars before, only he'd been at least ten years younger and definitely hadn't been shot a couple of times. 

Two cups of shitty diner coffee with a plate of shitty diner scrambled eggs and burnt hash browns later, and he was ready to tackle the last stage of the drive down a bunch of winding, overgrown roads, and do what he came here for. It was all beginning to feel shady and illegal in the way diving in the river for stolen money never had, but as Hap drives out of there he puts his hand on what he bought and feels like he couldn't have done anything but make the right choice. 

-

"What the hell," says Leonard.

The little fuzzball barks and squirms around and licks his nose. 

Hap's grinning so widely it feels like he just might burst. The puppy is mostly fuzz and legs, the black parts of its fur more brown fluff than black, and it's just big enough to fit in Leonard's arms but just small enough that it doesn't seem to be hurting him as it thumps its tail. "You said Switch was getting fat and lonely."

"I said you were making Switch fat and lonely." Leonard puts the pup down on the grass and whistles Switch over. Switch bends his head down, all dignified, to sniff at the newcomer, and the puppy lasts all of five seconds before it's up off its haunches and running excited if wobbly laps around the older dog. "You'll probably make this one fat and lazy too." Switch feints to the left, to the right, and the puppy scrambles after him, then goes down hard and lets out a pitiful yelp. 

Leonard's picking it up from the ground before Hap even registered it, and starts examining the dog. "You get this from a reputable breeder?" 

"Shoot, if you can't trust a man selling puppies out of a briefcase on the corner, what is this world coming to?" Hap asks, but when Leonard glares balefully at him he gives him the breeder's name. He'd gone to the library to get it, back when he was still fixing up Leonard's house. Gone twice because the first time he'd found out the Laborde public library is closed on Sundays, which shows just about how much reading he does. And when he'd called the breeder, and she'd told him how much a German Shepherd puppy cost generally, he'd nearly choked, but he'd asked if he could have one from the next litter all the same. Most of the bills had been parceled off by then, to Leonard's hospital bills and to the children's fund, but he'd still had the odd crumpled ones, and the few he'd found in Switch's shit.

Still, he hadn't spent those on the dog. He'd put them to his mortgage, and restocking the pantry, and paying back some of his bills, deciding that he'd only buy the dog with money he'd earned honestly. Granted, with the house and food and electricity paid for for the foreseeable future, he could put most of his paychecks towards the dog, but it's the principle of the thing. That dog wasn't stolen by nobody. That dog's worth hundreds, maybe thousands, of roses. 

And as it licks Leonard's face again and Leonard sputters in outrage, Hap thinks that that dog is definitely worth it. 

-

"I named the dog Trudy," says Leonard, Monday morning on their way to work. 

Hap stares at his knuckles, stares at the road. "If you're trying to call Trudy a bitch," he says, finally, lightly, "you ought to check again, cause that is definitely a boy dog."

"Well, Soldier was right when he said she had bigger balls than any of us," says Leonard, "but it's not that. She did for Soldier and Paco, she came back for us, she saved our lives maybe one and a half times. Can think of worse people to name somebody, man or dog, after."

"Yeah. So can I."

"I just didn't want to surprise you with it." Leonard's looking at Hap, anxious. "And if you'd had any objections, I could have changed it, before the name stuck."

"I don't have any objections," says Hal. "Except other dogs might make fun of him for having a girl's name."

"Any Rex or Spot or Sparky who tries to start something with Tru is a dog who's bitten off more than he can chew," says Leonard, sounding ridiculously proud of a dog he's owned for all of twenty-four hours, most of which he's probably spent telling it to keep its tongue away from his face. Hap finds himself smiling again, and to cover it starts spinning the radio dial. 

-

When Leonard is cleared for drinking, Hap springs for a case of Shiner and some drive-through barbecue. 

"My kidney's fine," says Leonard, looking at the case, "and now you're trying to kill my liver."

"It's cheaper this way." It is, and Hap's probably drunk a case's worth of what was ostensibly Leonard's beer since what happened. First the stuff in his fridge, then the stuff he bought to replace that, and the stuff he bought to replace that. It'd have been easier taking it back to his place and drinking it there, or not buying any at all until Leonard could, but it wasn't like Leonard begrudged him it. "Besides, there's one of the debates on tonight instead of a ball game, so who's to say you won't need it?"

Leonard rolls his eyes and helps himself to the barbecue. Switch sits at his feet and watches him eat with the patience of a suffering saint. Tru does the same, but without the patience or the sitting. Hap thinks Leonard's going to snap at the dog, but he just ignores it, talks with Hap. Gives Switch a shred of meat, which Switch eats without getting any sauce on his muzzle. Then he says, suddenly, "Tru, sit!" and the dog does, and gets its own piece of meat. 

"Social creatures," he says to Hap. "They learn from example."

"I was wondering how his training was going."

"Well enough. You ask the Neerys to housetrain him first?"

"Uh," says Hap. "No, don't believe I did."

Leonard snorts. "They could tell you were a rookie, and took pity on you. Damn good job of it too, otherwise I couldn't've left him here all day when I was at work." Tru is licking barbecue sauce off his whiskers. "Switch keeps him out of trouble otherwise. You were right--stops him from getting fat."

"And lonely?" asks Hap. 

"And lonely," Leonard echoes, and takes a pull of his beer. 

They don't make it anywhere near through the entire case, not even through what would have been a six pack, and opt for listening to Leonard's records instead of watching the presidential debate. Hap dozes, a little drunk and a lot full, and it's not even midnight. 

Leonard's still got half his beer from earlier, though it must be warm and flat by now. Hap realizes that Tru's on the couch with them, dozing too. "Hap," he says, "I owe you an apology."

Hap struggles up, yawning. "What?"

Leonard looks at his beer like it's the one who's speaking. "When I was in the hospital, and you came to see me, Raoul told you I didn't want to see you."

"Well," says Hap, "that's only understandable, after what we went through--"

"Shut up and let me finish, before you get all understanding on me." But he doesn't finish, not immediately. "Raoul told you that, but I never said it."

Hap stares at him. He feels light-headed and dry-mouthed, all of a sudden. It's not the beer, or not all the beer, at least. 

"Should've told you earlier, but I figured...." He shrugs. "Figured maybe it'd make you think twice before doing the next dumb thing, but it's not right, and it probably won't work either. But now you know."

"Raoul was just looking out for you," says Hap. They've been off again for a long, long time, and he hates to be the cause of it, or at least should hate to be the cause of it. Would hate to be the cause of it, if he were a better person. "It's like when you warned me about Trudy being trouble. He didn't want you to get hurt."

Leonard snorts. "You aren't trouble. You get in trouble, especially if I'm not there to tell your dumb ass not to, but you're not trouble."

"Thanks," says Hap. His heart is racing a little too fast. He didn't drink that much. "Still, you, uh. You and he."

"I can look out for myself," says Leonard, and Hap wants to say no you can't, but he also doesn't want an ass-kicking. 

"Yeah, but you've been more cantankerous than usual," says Hap. "Always happens when you're not getting any."

"Who says I'm not getting any? I got two good hands and a dildo," says Leonard, clearly intending to relish Hap's discomfort, "named Lyndon B. Johnson."

"I need another beer," Hap says, face flaming. He can hear Leonard laughing behind him, low and amused, and he supposes he deserves it.

-

After the season's over, the boss puts them to clearing brush elsewhere on his lands, then puts in some good words for them, Hap doesn't know why, and gets them work at one of those Christmas tree lots. 

"Maybe he's got a crush on you," he tells Leonard.

Leonard snorts. "Maybe he's got a crush on you."

Hap thinks it's more like once you've been the victim of some dumb, senseless tragedy, everyone, no matter how badly they tried to screw you over before, suddenly wants to help you out. Of course, that's not how things went after the war for either of them, but apparently a few lone psychopaths are a tragedy and a needless war that chewed up and spit out a generation is just what it takes to make America feel like it didn't get beat by some tiny country halfway across the world. 

Or maybe the boss just wanted to see them wearing elf suits. Hap knows Leonard knows it's an elf suit, but as long as nobody says anything about it their asses remain unwhooped. 

It's not snowing yet, but it's cooling down, no longer beer weather, and Leonard pours out a splash of whiskey for them both to have with their pizza. It's not the greatest pizza, the crust tastes like cardboard, but the tomato sauce isn't as anemic as some, and there's lots of cheese and pepperoni, so it evens out. 

Besides, the dogs like the crust.

Hap sips slowly at the whiskey, and when Leonard offers a refill, he puts his hand over the glass. 

"Brings back bad memories?" says Leonard. 

"Not really." That was the last time they drank whiskey in this house: dragging in those bank boxes from the river, flush with success and cash, or so they'd thought. They'd been drinking with a lot of people who were dead now, most of whom didn't deserve it. He can tell that that's what it brings back for Leonard, who's normally a whiskey man but been staring at his glass like it insulted him all evening. "Just don't feel like getting drunk tonight, I guess."

Leonard shrugs, screws the cap back on. As always, he won't let Hap help clean up ("You don't even know how to load a dishwasher," he says, and sometimes, "There was soap on my bowls, Hap. When I have my cereal, I want to have it with milk, maybe some fruit, and absolutely no goddamn soap.") so Hap ambles out to the living room to make sure all the curtains are shut and the doors and windows are locked. 

Well, he knows the doors and windows are locked. He's paranoid about that in a way he never was before. 

He thinks he's got it timed right so that when he goes back to the kitchen he can help Leonard dry, but take-out pizza and whiskey doesn't leave much in the way of dishes to dry. The highball glasses are in the rack, plates in the dishwasher, and Leonard's wrapping the leftovers in foil and putting them away. 

"Hell, Tru," he says, giving the dog a gentle shove, "how many times do I have to tell you, get out of the fridge?"

Tru looks up at Leonard and whines. Leonard manages to get the door shut. 

"Still in training?" Hap asks, lounging against the door frame. 

"It takes time," says Leonard. "Anything worthwhile does."

Tru, having given up on the pizza, gives Hap something of a judgmental look. Hap doesn't even know why. 

Hap settles on the couch to watch some mindless TV, something with a laugh track he doesn't really pay attention to. Leonard is taking the dogs out for the last piss until morning, and Hap is mostly listening to him remind them of that. He talks to his dogs more than he used to, not like those people who talk to their animals like they're babies, but like a drill sergeant, a nice one, if such things exist. 

The night is cold but clear, and it's not that late. Hap isn't too drunk to drive, Hap really isn't drunk at all. He has no reason to stay but he doesn't really feel like going. 

Leonard comes back in. Hap thinks he might be about to ask him what he's watching this garbage for, then lean over and switch it off before Hap can answer, but he doesn't. "I'm turning in," he says. "Don't let Switch watch this stuff, it'll rot his brain." He ruffles one of Switch's ears. 

"What about my brain?"

"What makes you think you have a brain?" Leonard shoots back, and saunters down the hall, both dogs trotting after. 

Hap stays sitting in that chair for what feels like a very long time, but can't even be twenty minutes because soon enough the credits are rolling and he still has no desire to get in his car and go home. 

No, he thinks, it's not that he doesn't want to go home. It's that he doesn't need to go anywhere to get there. 

He gets to his feet. Switch is stretched out across Leonard's doorway again, and Hap starts to head past him and then he thinks, why the hell not, and steps over him. 

Leonard is propped up in bed reading a heavy-looking book. He's in the center and on the other side of him is Tru, gnawing on something red and rubbery that Hap really hopes is a dog toy. 

Leonard's not wearing a shirt, and under the sheet it's likely he's got nothing more than boxers on. Apart from the bullet scars, he looks good, he looks real good. Hap's seen Leonard naked or damn near it plenty of times, but he didn't think it meant anything before. 

"I was thinking," he begins, and Leonard puts down the book, gives Hap his full attention. He was quiet as a kid, too, and intense. 

Hap clears his throat. "I was thinking I might stay here tonight." Leonard keeps on looking at him. "I mean, here here. With you, and--" There's a thud as the toy falls to the floor, and Tru twists around. 

"Not with you," he tells the dog, but the dog doesn't pay him any mind. He doesn't think about it too much these days, but he's never been more conscious that the dog's named after his ex-wife than he is right now, trying to banish it from the room, this night, his thoughts. "I mean it, Tru, get."

He's going to lose a contest of wills with a dog, he realizes, until Leonard just rolls his eyes and makes a hand gesture, and Tru jumps down and goes out to the hallway. Leonard gets up, shuts the door after them, and comes back to bed.


End file.
